


gone

by TrainRush



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: :(, Angst, Blood, Character Death, Emetophobia, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Nihilistic Conductor, Suicide, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Vomiting, sorry this gets Real Sad Real Quick, there is much Regret™, y’know. cause one of em is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22367758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrainRush/pseuds/TrainRush
Summary: (continues off the backs ofNecktieandTipsyby Subconite. read them for context.)He was too late.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 53





	gone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yuminpa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuminpa/gifts).



> just a little thing for a couple of my favorite fics right now. [|x|](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22260175) [|x|](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22366942)
> 
> please read them for context. trust me, you’ll need it.

Hindsight is 20:20. And DJ Grooves felt it as soon as he stepped foot outside of the Conductor’s door.

In hindsight, he shouldn't have said what he had. He hadn’t meant any of it. He was just in shock. Complete and utter shock that after everything they’d been through, the Conductor _still_ wasn’t trying to help himself. That after everything, he was _still_ willing to sit and wallow in his own self-hatred. He let a few of his other previously buried concerns bubble up, too, with his anger. But they came out a little harsher than he’d expected. Actually, a _lot_ harsher.

Calling him selfish when he was probably just desperate for an escape.

Accusing him of not caring about anyone else when he likely only pushed them away because he felt he didn’t deserve their care.

Saying that he shouldn’t care if he lives or dies.

Come to think of it, hindsight felt like more than 20:20 now, as he walked away from the Conductor’s humble makeshift office, still steaming with anger. Then he paused and let the full weight of his 20:20 vision sink in. For a moment, he turned around, wondering if he could really go and confront the Conductor again after everything he’d said. Maybe he could try and apologize. Make some sort of patched amends.

But he figured that the Conductor wouldn’t want to see him again for a while, much less talk to him. After every rotten thing that the moon penguin had just berated him with, it would make sense. So DJ Grooves kept walking away, not stopping to look back again as he made his way to his set.

⁂

Mere minutes felt like hours as DJ Grooves tried to return to his everyday task as a director. Key word: _tried._ His thoughts were cluttered with frustration and shadowy guilt that made even barely focusing the most arduous task. The knot in his throat tightened as he remembered how the Conductor looked before he left. How he buried his head in his talons, tears soaking his feathers. What he had said. “You’re making this so much worse.” That was it, wasn’t it? Oh, god. What on earth was he thinking?

He needed to talk to him.

After what felt like close to an eternity of trudging knee-deep through his own thoughts, DJ Grooves called upon his penguins to stop what they were doing. He figured he couldn’t let them keep performing if he couldn’t properly pay attention to them. And besides, considering the long days of work that had passed them recently, he figured they’d do well with a break, too. So with a smile and a nod to confirm his actors’ good performances and the causal sweeping around some certain questions, DJ Grooves broke away from his clique of penguins and set off towards the Conductor’s side of the studio.

Sure, it was unlikely that his rival had bothered coming up from the basement to talk to his owls, but it was still worth checking. There was an elevator over there anyway. He made quick pace as he skipped through the halls, searching for an owl to stop and question. 

Eventually, he came across an express owl quietly reading their script, and DJ Grooves pulled them aside. “Have you seen Conductor around lately?” 

“No,” the owl responded, shaking their head slowly and eyeing him with apprehension. “I thought he was still in his office. Is that a bad thing?”

“Not at all,” DJ Grooves reassured the owl. “That’s actually very good news. You see, Conductor…” he trailed off for a moment, “isn’t exactly in his right mind right now. I’d like to try and handle him myself.”

The owl shuffled a little. “Should I tell the others?”

DJ Grooves nodded, beginning to walk away. “Yes, definitely. Oh, and would you tell the moon penguins I may not be back for a while? I don’t know how long this is going to take.”

“Yes, sir!” the owl affirmed, watching the director leave in the other direction before walking away as well.

⁂

The halls of the basement were cold and damp like they usually were. DJ Grooves pulled his coat closer to himself to block out the chill, but he only found himself shivering even more as he made his way back to the Conductor’s storage room. DJ Grooves carefully watched the walls of the basement as he walked to ensure that he was heading in the right direction; the lower levels of the studio were notorious for being labyrinth-like.

As he continued onward at a quick pace, the sound of his footsteps echoing off the barren walls, he felt an odd sense of foreboding creep up on him. The closer he got to the Conductor’s office, the more his heart pounded, and the more suffocated his breaths felt. He tried to tell himself that this anxiety was natural. Why wouldn’t he feel anxious? He had so many things to worry about. What if he had another outburst? What if he said the wrong thing? What if the Conductor wouldn’t let him talk to him?

_What if he was too late?_

_What if the Conductor had done something irreversible?_

_Something unimaginable?_

DJ Grooves couldn’t help but find himself gripped by these thoughts as he advanced further and further. It wouldn’t be long, now…

⁂

At last, DJ Grooves rounded a corner and found himself staring down a narrow, dimly lit hall. Far down, at its end, was the only door not blocked by cluttering boxes and buckets. It seemed to loom ominously. In his anxiety, DJ Grooves felt the hall stretch miles longer than it actually was as he carefully made his way to the Conductor’s office. His heart beat like a drum, feeling almost loud enough to echo off the stone walls. He made futile attempts to calm himself, telling himself his anxiety was for naught, but…

DJ Grooves stood in front of the door. Everything seemed to fall silent, save for his heartbeat and nervous, shallow breaths. With apprehensive confidence, he raised his fist to the door, took a deep breath, and knocked exactly three times.

For a moment, he thought he heard something, but looked up to realize it was only the sound of a light bulb fizzling out above him.

He waited a little longer.

No response.

Again, he raised his fist to the door, and now knocked four times. He took another deep breath and spoke.

“Conductor?”

Yet even more silence.

No response.

“I know you’re mad at me,” he tried reasoning, leaning against the door. “Trust me, I’d be mad at me too. And after what I said, I’m not sure want to forgive me anytime soon.”

No response.

“But…” DJ Grooves’s face fell. “I just wanted you to know that I didn’t mean any of it. None of it at all. I was just… so caught up in myself… I…”

_No response._

He felt his heart begin to drum again as he realized he hadn’t yet heard a _sound_ from the other end.

“Conductor? Conductor, are you there?”

_No response._

He knocked again, even louder than before. “C-Conductor??”

_No response._

A moment passed, and DJ Grooves put a flipper on the handle of the door. “Conductor, I’m coming in.”

**_No response._ **

“Okay…” he whispered, uncertain if he was talking to the Conductor or to himself. “Fine.”

**_No response._ **

DJ Grooves hesitated for a second, feeling his grip tighten around the steel handle.

Then, in a single, swift motion, he swung the door open.

“Conductor—?!”

⁂

It took a moment for DJ Grooves to fully process the scene before him.

At first, maybe with a simple glance over the scene, everything appeared normal. The desk was still sitting in the same spot, as were the open bottles on top of it. The metal pole still lay on the floor, and the cut up necktie still sat abandoned beside it. There were still boxes stacked against the walls and the warm, flickering light in the center of the room was still on.

Even the Conductor was there, too.

But a second glance over the room told another story.

Oh, god, there was so much blood. Deep, dark plum blood. Pooling at the base of the chair, splattered on the desk, and all over the floor. Dried coating a knife that lay beside the chair, on the floor beneath the Conductor’s limp arm and hand, which it had clearly been dropped from.

Dripping from a gaping, swollen stab wound in the Conductor’s chest.

For a moment, shock numbed DJ Grooves’s senses. Upon taking in the scene, he flinched back, gaping in utter disbelief as he stared on with pure, numb horror.

The stab wound.

The blood.

The knife.

The blank expression on the Conductor’s face.

His body motionless.

The stab wound.

The memories of their last conversation.

The blood—

_The smell._

The stench of death, sharp and metallic yet dull and rotten, reached him, and he lurched, feeling all of his emotions catch up to him at once. 

_The Conductor is dead._

He fled from the room, doing his best to slam the door shut behind him. He quickly clamped a flipper over his mouth, frantically glancing around the hall in search of a bucket.

_The Conductor is dead. Gone._

Noticing an empty paint can to his left, he shakily staggered over to it.

**_The Conductor is dead. And it’s your fault._ **

Practically falling to his knees, DJ Grooves emptied his stomach.

⁂

He found himself sitting and shaking feebly in the corner waiting for the paramedics to arrive. He couldn’t move; he couldn't bring himself to. DJ Grooves squeezed his eyes shut, pleading with and promising himself that this was only a nightmare. When he woke up, he’d find the Conductor safe and sound. Yelling at his owls… drinking from a flask… it didn’t matter. He’d hug him so tightly. His rival would never know why. Yet every time he closed his eyes to try and convince himself that it was a dream, the image of that scene resurfaced.

The Conductor, motionless, sitting in a pool of his own blood, a deep stab wound in his chest. The knife — one of his knives — sitting next to him, its usage clear.

No amount of sobbing and pleading could erase that.

⁂

The paramedics came and went. He wasn’t sure when, but they were gone before he knew it. They must have been really quiet. Or maybe he was crying too loudly to hear them.

He felt a pang of guilt once he realized they had left. A part of him wanted to see the Conductor one last time before his inevitable funeral, as shocking as it was to think—

_Funeral?_

_What funeral?_

_This is only a nightmare. You’ll wake up soon, don’t worry._

_None of this is real._

⁂

DJ Grooves may have spent the night sitting there, curled up in the corner outside of the Conductor’s door. He wasn’t sure. In his grief, the concept of time had left him.

Eventually, he came to the revelation that perhaps, to help himself wake up, he needed to continue the nightmare a little further. Then, somehow, he’d be startled back into the waking world. But how?

His actors. He needed to tell his actors that the studio would be indefinitely closed.

Rather unsteadily, he raised himself to his feet, feeling his body cramp with every movement. He quickly realized that sleeping on the stone-cold ground against the wall wasn’t the most comfortable position. He raised his arms above his head, stretching for a moment before slowly beginning to shuffle through the halls of the basement.

Perhaps a paramedic bird had told everyone to go home, because he found that there were no penguins nor owls in the halls. The basement was dead silent apart from his own footsteps. He reached into his coat for his phone and read the time.

_7:39 AM._

If there were actors here, they’d be everywhere, he observed. The basement was always busy around this time of day.

But it appeared that he was alone.

⁂

DJ Grooves barely managed to muster up enough concentration to help himself find his room, and in his room he stayed. He did not sleep. He hardly ate. He did not even bother turning on a light. He simply sat on his bed and stared blankly at the wall. What he was trying to accomplish by doing this, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe he was trying to erase the vivid image of the Conductor’s corpse from his mind. Perhaps he was trying to forget the last thing he had said to his late rival. Whatever it was, it absorbed an entire week of DJ Grooves’s life.

Sometime during his week of isolated grief, he gave up on the idea that the Conductor’s death was “a nightmare.” Nightmares weren’t lucid like this. Nightmares didn’t last as long as this. Nightmares couldn’t produce a rotten stench so powerful that it sticks to your mind and doesn’t go away like this.

The Conductor’s autopsy report also arrived sometime during that week. He couldn’t bring himself to care for it much. It only told him things he already knew.

The cause of death was, indeed, suicide. The method used was a knife, the shape of his wound matching the knife found at the scene.

He had somehow managed to puncture and slice open a vital artery, and he died within 2 minutes of impact.

His time of death was approximately 5:34 PM: only a few minutes after DJ Grooves had left his office.

His blood alcohol content was 0.11%.

~~_“I'm only tipsy, but…” A smile— albeit forced— came to his face, and he looked at his rival._ ~~

DJ Grooves grimaced. Nausea gripped him.

~~_“I mean, if I was actually full on drunk, I'd actually be somewhat pecking happy, wouldn't I!?”_ ~~

What on earth was he thinking?

~~_“No! I'm…really, really not okay.”_ ~~

The Conductor wasn’t stable in the least. It’s no wonder he couldn’t handle what he’d said.

~~_“Heh. Tell me somethin’ I don't know.”_ ~~

He was only encouraging those thoughts. Bringing them louder. He was channeling them. Taking the Conductor’s anxiety and making it real.

~~_“When you tried to take your life those two times, I bet you didn't even think about anyone else but yourself.”_ ~~

DJ Grooves was only proving to the Conductor what he’d already thought of himself. Bringing those thoughts into the real world and having them _yelled at him._

~~_“You don't care about anyone else. And you never have. I've never met someone like you, and that's not a compliment.”_ ~~

It was no wonder he couldn’t take it anymore.

~~_“GET THE PECK OUT OF HERE!”_ ~~

It was no wonder he took his own life so soon after.

~~_“GET OUT! Yer making this so much worse and I…can't…get out. Please.”_ ~~

DJ Grooves had become the very thing he’d sworn to help the Conductor destroy.

…

Maybe that would be for the best: if he destroyed himself. Maybe he could let himself starve there, in his room. That was what the Conductor would want, right?

…

He shook those thoughts away.

 _No._ He had a studio to attend to.

⁂


End file.
